Germination troubleshooting
If your seeds did not germinate properly, here are a few things you can do to troubleshoot the problem.
Germination failure
Failure of your seeds to germinate can be due to a number of reasons. The most common is that the soil dried out or the seed was no longer viable.
These are the most common reasons for lack of germination:
Damping off disease
Seeds planted to deeply
Soil temperature too low
Low soil temperatures can dramatically impact your days to germination! This table illustrates the effects of temperature on carrot seed germination. *Adapted from GrowLab: A Complete Guide to Growing in the Classroom*
Temperature - Celsius | Days to Germination
- 35C | 8.6 days
- 25C | 6.2 days
- 20C | 6.9 days
- 10C | 17.3 days
- 5C | 50.6 days
Poor seed to soil contact
Soil dried out
Seed is no longer viable
Seeds are living beings and only live for so long. Some seeds only last for one year, some can last 3 or more. The older the seeds though, the lower the viability of that seed is.
You can check if your seeds are still viable with a simple germination test. Count the number of seeds you are going to test. Soak a piece of paper towel and spread the counted seeds over one side of the towel, the fold the other half over the seeds. Fold or roll up the paper towel and place it into a ziplock or plastic bag. Check the Days to Germination number for your particular seeds. This number can be found on the seed package and is the number of days it will take for seeds to sprout. After that amount of days, open up to see if your seeds have sprouted. Yu can keep checking every day for a few days. Count the number of healthy looking sprouts and divide by the number of seeds you first laid out. This is your germination percentage. Ensure your paper towel does not dry out for this time period. Adjust the amount of seeds you plant based on your germination percentage.
Soil too wet and seeds rotted
Thanks to Little Green Thumbs for providing the information and images on this page.
